Serving your country, in whatever capacity, when asked by the president, is.

Doing things for the betterment or defense of your country/men is patriotic. Doing what a leader says because a leader says isn't.

That's great. That's also not what was being talked about. Willingness to accept a position if offered to you by the president isn't the same as "doing what a leader says because he says it".

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What has he actually done that has changed your opinion from his being the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to the country to the point that you'd vote for Clinton to earn your "principled" vote of confidence?

He won the election. Silly me for giving him the benefit of the doubt and waiting to see what he actually does in office rather than spending all my time listening to people telling me about what they think he might have done in the past, especially when those things are, so far as I can see, based on sheer speculation and a desire to simply paint him in the worst light no matter what.

I gave Obama the exact same benefit of the doubt. He responded by proceeding to spend about a trillion dollars on completely unnecessary things that I felt would slow down the economic recovery (and I appear to have been correct). He followed that up with a foreign trip in which he basically vowed to pull US involvement out of a number of areas in the world, which I felt would only embolden more tin-pot dictators and allow other powers to fill in the void we would create (and I appear to have been correct on that as well). He followed that up with what appears to have been a scheme to gin up gun control arguments for his party, which backfired badly when the guns allowed to slip into Mexico to increase the death rate there so it could be blamed on US gun sales (coordinated with increased pressure on gun shows as the cause for those of you who were paying attention at the time) resulted in a Border Patrol officer being shot and killed and the program being revealed. He sent Clinton to Russia with that stupid "reset button", which (once again predictably) resulted in a more emboldened Russia, which has since then spread its influence even more. He watched the pitch go by on the Green Revolution in Iran, resulting in failure. He again watched the pitch go by in Egypt, sitting on the sidelines actually making a big show of "not meddling", resulting in extremists associated with several terrorist groups gaining power. He did the same exact thing again in Libya, refusing to aid an effort to topple Gaddafi, allowing other less friendly forces to step in, then when they nearly failed, finally stepped in and helped, but too late to prevent those other forces from having a strong foothold in the country (which, you know, leads us to Benghazi). Oh, and he actually violated the War Powers act in the process to boot (an actual "illegal war", which I thought the folks on the left were against). He then failed to act (once again) in Syria, when we could have literally picked any random faction in the conflict, supported them and had influence over the resulting government, instead allowing that conflict to fester eternally. Oh, and then failed to act on his own red line involving chemical weapons use. Oh, and then failed to renegotiate the SOFA in Iraq, almost gleefully withdrew our troops from that country, knowing there was an active war going on just over a relatively unsecured border and that Iraqi forces were not yet capable of dealing with that at the time. Which, you know, basically allowed ISIS to exist in the first place, spilling out of the conflict in Syria and into Iraq, giving them far more resources and actual territory to work with. A mistake that still hasn't been corrected (and a conflict in Syria that's still going strong resulting so far in more casualties than the entire Iraq war, and many times more displaced refugees.

I judged Obama purely on his actions, and the results of those actions. Nothing else. And yeah, I intend to judge Trump the exact same way. As I said earlier, if you want to attack him for his political actions, that's great. And heck, I'll likely even agree with you on some of them. But this nonsense? It's ridiculous.

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That's a really weird thing to insist when you spent so much energy to defend the guy that didn't want to deploy because the person he wanted to win an election didn't. Years after the fact.

I honestly have no clue what you are talking about? The only thing I can think of is one of the several lawsuits related to the whole birth certificate thing? Which had nothing directly to do with wanting or not wanting to deploy. If that's your primary take away from any argument I made about that, then you completely missed the point.

Unless you're talking about something else, in which case I have no clue. Maybe a hint?

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And when they do tune it out "someone" complains about how they're not actually just bored of all the howling and tuning them out but they simply must not be able to argue their points. Can you just imagine how annoying that would get?

You completely missed the point I was making. I'm talking about the public response to such constant attacks. It's not about them arguing points, or not being able to argue points. It's the basic point that when you make every single thing into the most important thing, then you can't be surprised when the public ceases to be able to actually tell when something is really important and when it's not. They'll either accept that everything being claimed is true, but nothing ever changes anyway *or* they'll assume it's all "fake news" and disbelieve anything that is said.

Either way, the result is decreased public attention to anything that happens.

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At least you're pretending to feel a fraction of how we actually felt with your howling at every single thing, no matter how minor, and attempting to convince the entire population that it's the biggest thing ever, and it's a totally horrible thing, and we must fight against it with all our might.

The key difference is that I spoke about things that actually happened. This howling is over... what? Rumors? Speculation? Anything else?

I have no problem at all with someone pointing out an action a political takes, a law proposed (or passed), an order given (and acted on), and expressing their opinion about that. That's completely reasonable. But to spend so much time and effort on what appears to be absolutely nothing? You must really not have a position to make if that's where you go, right?

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Obama bows too low and it's the absolute worst insult to this country, yet 45 doesn't salute during a national anthem and not even a peep.

it wasn't the bowing alone, but the message he sent during that trip. If you recall, I didn't raise the issue of bowing, and it was never a focus of my posts. I responded to those insisting that it wasn't a big deal by pointing out that it was kind of an inappropriate bow the way he did it. I think you're placing way more weight on that than I ever did. My focus was on the message of the trip.

And hey. If you had that much of a problem with Trump being a bit slow to raise his hand to his heart during the Anthem, you could have posted about it. What part of "I don't scour the media looking for silly gotcha stuff" did you not get the first hundred or so times I said it?

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Is this a Dread Pirate Roberts thing? Did the original gbaji give you his codes and you're just trying to continue the tradition? The original was never good with keeping track of his stories either but this is just beyond inconsistent. It's like you've never even seen a gbaji post.

I don't tend to bring such things to the conversation (I don't think I ever have). Other people may bring such things up, and I may comment on them, but if you think it's a big deal, that's your perception, not mine. For my part, I'm usually posting merely because I see someone else being overly emotional about something and so I respond.

So in this thread, it's people going hysterical over what I see as nothing more than media created fluff. And yeah, it reminds me a lot of the Plame investigation, which literally started because one reporter wrote an article in which he mentioned (almost out of the blue, btw) that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, then another reporter wrote an op-ed speculating that if Wilson's wife was a "secret agent" of some kind, then her employment at the CIA would be classified, and if the first reporter got this information from someone with access to that secret than that person would be violating the law, and if that person worked at the White House, then this whole chain of speculation could be a way of getting back at Wilson for his op-eds attacking Bush's claim in the 2004 SOTU speech.

There's literally 4 levels of "if" in that chain of reasoning. Ironically, none of them being true. But that didn't matter. The speculation alone got traction, was repeated over and over, and lead to an investigation.

Sound familiar? If the Russians were the ones who handed the DNC emails to Wikileaks. And if they obtained it via hacking of the DNC server. And if they did it to help Trump win the election. And if Trump knew about this help. And if there was some sort of promised quid pro quo from Trump to the Russians. And if Trump somehow helped the Russians with the hacking, or with the release of the information. Then you'd have collusion with the Russians to steal an election, and criminal activity on US soil involved and could proceed with some kind of legal action. OMG! It all seems to clear to me.

Of course, just one of those "ifs" not being true breaks the entire chain, right? It's an incredibly weak series of speculations. You might as well start claiming that Trump used satellites to beam his mind control waves into people's brains to get them to vote for him. That's about as reasonable.

Or we can look at the far more likely explanation that Clinton was just such a weak candidate, with so many flaws, and so much baggage, and so many questions, that she could be beat even by a candidate as questionable as Donald Trump. And I honestly think this is the driving force for this. The Left spent so much time just utterly bashing Trump. He's a buffoon. He's a joke. He can't even speak properly (it's all yuge, right?). He probably can't tie his own shoes. He has no chance against the veteran politician that is Clinton, and everyone who knows anything at all knows it. Only a complete idiot would think he has a snowballs chance in **** of winning.

But then he won. And rather than face the fact that maybe they were just plain wrong, the left has lashed out in every direction to find an explanation. And "rigged election" is the easiest one to go for. Let's not forget that neither Trump or the Russians wrote the stuff Podesta and other members of the DNC wrote, which was such an embarrassment to them. It was the Democrats being themselves when they thought no one was looking. If you honestly think that the wikileaks cost Clinton the election, then isn't the real problem with the DNC and the Clinton campaign anyway? Maybe next time, try *not* to cheat in your own primary. Just a suggestion.

And if you think it was the Comey release a week or so before the election that did it, then shouldn't you be happy that he finally got fired? Except, that doesn't fit the new narrative, so you have to defend Comey instead, right? Um... At what point do you start realizing that the position and argument you're using is so incredibly twisted? It's not about fact, or right or wrong, it's about supporting whatever media narrative helps your "side" today. So the villain of yesterday becomes the martyr today.

Sorry. I find that way too contrived. Get back to me when there are supporting facts for any of this.

Outgoing officials in the Obama administration make a deal of publicly cautioning Israeli intelligence not to share stuff with Trump (cause you know, narrative says he's besties with Putin, right?). Israeli intelligence recognizes this as the political silliness it is, and continues business as usual. The Obama supporters/Trump opposers, then wait until Trump says anything remotely connected to sharing intelligence with the Russians and pounce on it.

Cite, plz.

Um... Do your fingers not work? This is what Samira was referring to. Strange that you didn't demand a cite then, but do now.

Where do you suppose Samira got the idea that this was such a huge deal back then that Israel must have stopped sharing intelligence with us? Yeah. Media coverage, of what, once again, was a media driven claim, which, once again, no one in the actual intelligence agencies have confirmed (seems like this is a repeated trend).

I suppose that I should have written "Media widely reports that outgoing intelligence officials in the Obama administration caution Israel against sharing intelligence with Trump". That would have been more accurate.

But the point is to set the stage in the minds of the public, who are largely ignorant of what is "normal" and what is not. First create the perception that Trump can't be trusted with intelligence from Israel because he'll share it with Russia. And then wait until Trump shares some intelligence gained from Israeli sources with Russia and then... POUNCE! OMG! We were right all along.

But that's like predicting that Trump will someday have breakfast, and then claiming some kind of victory when it happens. And no, not because it's inevitable that Trump will accidentally blurt out some secret stuff in an unrelated meeting or something, but because it's completely normal for nations to share intelligence in this way. It's a nothing story, made into "something" merely because those reporting it are pretending that it matters (and of course, some of the folks with a "D" after their names in Washington are more than willing to make statements that appear to support the narrative).

Once again, we see a made up story being pushed loudly into the public perception, seemingly purely out of a belief that the public will assume that the fact that it's being reported means it must be newsworthy. Um... This is what happens when you have a media industry that is so heavily politically biased. They can run with stories like this, and the public can't know what is actually true and what is not.

Which, BTW, is why the news media polls worse than Trump. They're hurting their own reputation faster than they are Trumps. The more they do this kind of BS, the less people will trust them. All Trump has to do is say "fake news", and an ever increasing number of people will just assume the news people are lying. Because we keep seeing examples of this, that aren't even a little bit subtle.

Gbaji was also the guy to gloat on election night 2008 about how he was SO much better than the "Not my president!" Bush-haters because he acknowledged that Obama was president and deserved respect for the office.

And? Have you done the same for Trump? Did you do the same for Bush in 2000? Or again for Bush in 2004? Funny. I seem to recall screaming about recounts and popular versus EC votes in 2000. Then I seem to recall posts about how 51% of the country was made up of complete idiots in 2004.

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That, of course, lasted about two days before Obama was so terrible that he ruined the presidency forever and deserved absolutely no respect. Shit, I don't think Gbaji even waited for him to take office.

I judged him on his own actions. I listed above what those actions were. And that's honestly just a partial list. I have many beefs with things Obama did. But the point is that they are with things that Obama actually did. See how that works?

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Can we just agree that the person in the office makes absolutely no difference to Gbaji so long as the right letter (R) is following his name?

That's an amazing piece of projection. See my response to your first paragraph. I'll point out again that this really has nothing to do with Trump. If someone else had won the GOP nomination and won the election, you'd all still be screaming about how incompetent he (or she!) is, how dangerous his policies are, etc. You'll be calling him names, suggesting he has a low IQ, finding any thing you can to make him look foolish, etc. He'll be the **** of jokes late night shows, early morning shows, and everything in between.

This is how the Left treats Republicans. Period. The only thing that matters is the (R) after their name. It's been the same pattern since the 2000 election. The details of the attacks may change, but the attacks are always there, and are always about the person and not their actions. How many arguments come in the form of "well, we don't have any hard evidence of this, but he certainly seems to be the kind of person who would do <X>", or "is there anyone who doubts that he might do something like this?", or "I wouldn't be surprised if he did do <X>"? Seriously. Just listen to what the pundits are saying and how they are saying it. It's laughable.

And again, it's the same thing. It's been going on since the 2000 election. It has nothing at all to do with any specific characteristic of the GOP platform, or the GOP politicians themselves. It has to do with the wake up call the Left got in 2000, when they realized that for the first time in like 100 years they found themselves with no power in either house in congress, nor in the White House. it was a desperate reaction as they realized also that their message was failing. The US population was not buying their socialist-light agenda, and they were no longer able to win elections running on that political ideology. It was at that moment (and to be fair, this is my opinion only), that they realized the only way for them to "win" was to go so far negative that they would force the public to polarize into "hard left" or "hard right", while they still had enough numbers and enough voices in the media and education industries to pull it off. They had to totally demonize the GOP and anyone who voted GOP, or defended GOP, that it would scare people into voting Dem instead, in many cases purely out of a fear of being ostracized for doing otherwise.

This is not about the GOP. It is entirely about a change in political tactics by the Democrats after their loss in the 2000 election. It's a very clear pattern to see. If you're willing to open your eyes and see it.

So yeah, I find it absolutely hysterical that you're claiming that I'm the one picking a side purely because of the party. I pick a side that makes sense. And for quite some time now, the Democrats have not only not made sense, they haven't even tried to do so. The GOP, while not perfect by any imagination, at least speaks from an ideological source, and outlines a set of policies and an agenda, and traces those back to that ideology. Even Trump, for all that he's not a very good Conservative, at least uses the language and has (so far, at least) pushed an agenda that aligns with that ideology.

On the left, you have... what? Nothing but rhetoric. I can't remember the last time a Democrat actually spoke in terms of principles and ideology. It's all about dividing people into groups and pitting them against each other, with the Dems trying to position themselves to appear to be the best choice for the largest number of groups. And that's when they even try a positive message. Most of the time, it's just "vote for us because the GOP is a bunch of horrible, heartless, bigoted, haters". That might win you some elections now and then, but it's a pretty horrible platform.

Gbaji was also the guy to gloat on election night 2008 about how he was SO much better than the "Not my president!" Bush-haters because he acknowledged that Obama was president and deserved respect for the office.

And? Have you done the same for Trump?

Said that he won the election? Sure. Have you not been reading the forums? But if your argument for Trump is "I thought he was dangerously incompetent the day before the election but then he won so now I need to defend him", well, I don't think that sends the quite message that you're hoping it does.

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On the left, you have... what? Nothing but rhetoric. I can't remember the last time a Democrat actually spoke in terms of principles and ideology.

That's okay. You also spent a decade insisting that no one ever gave a reason for the government institution of marriage beyond children. I think we can safely not fret over what you claim you've never seen or heard.

Anyway, it's nice and all that you're trying to convince anyone (me? the board? yourself?) that you totally gave Obama a chance. We both know it's not true and I don't think we really need to watch you embarrass yourself insisting it further.

Outgoing officials in the Obama administration make a deal of publicly cautioning Israeli intelligence not to share stuff with Trump (cause you know, narrative says he's besties with Putin, right?). Israeli intelligence recognizes this as the political silliness it is, and continues business as usual. The Obama supporters/Trump opposers, then wait until Trump says anything remotely connected to sharing intelligence with the Russians and pounce on it.

No where in that article does it say Israeli Intelligence thought any of this was "silly"...so, cite on that?

Oh, wait. That you trying to pass your opinions as facts. Gosh, almost missed that.

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Jophiel wrote:

Last week, I saw a guy with an eyepatch and a gold monocle and pointed him out to Flea as one of the most awesome things I've seen, ever. If I had an eyepatch and a gold monocle, I'd always dress up as Mr. Peanut but with a hook hand and a parrot.

This is how the Left treats Republicans. Period. The only thing that matters is the (R) after their name. It's been the same pattern since the 2000 election. The details of the attacks may change, but the attacks are always there, and are always about the person and not their actions.

It's about both, but you can't defend that, so you lie.

gbaji wrote:

How many arguments come in the form of "well, we don't have any hard evidence of this, but he certainly seems to be the kind of person who would do <X>", or "is there anyone who doubts that he might do something like this?", or "I wouldn't be surprised if he did do <X>"? Seriously. Just listen to what the pundits are saying and how they are saying it. It's laughable.at aligns with that ideology.

You're pretending this isn't Fox's bread and butter? Really? Are you lying again or just stupid? Because it really is one or the other.

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Jophiel wrote:

Last week, I saw a guy with an eyepatch and a gold monocle and pointed him out to Flea as one of the most awesome things I've seen, ever. If I had an eyepatch and a gold monocle, I'd always dress up as Mr. Peanut but with a hook hand and a parrot.

Trump didn't say "something remotely connected to sharing intelligence". He passed along actual intelligence directly to the Russians. You suck at obfuscation, so stop trying, OK?

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Jophiel wrote:

Last week, I saw a guy with an eyepatch and a gold monocle and pointed him out to Flea as one of the most awesome things I've seen, ever. If I had an eyepatch and a gold monocle, I'd always dress up as Mr. Peanut but with a hook hand and a parrot.

I'm pretty sure the world would be a better place if we swapped Trump and Hitler. Germany would lose much quicker and at least those of us in the present could enjoy some decent public speaking for a change. Plus, we could probably trust Adolf not to sell his country out to Russia.

But the point is to set the stage in the minds of the public, who are largely ignorant of what is "normal" and what is not. First create the perception that Trump can't be trusted with intelligence from Israel because he'll share it with Russia. And then wait until Trump shares some intelligence gained from Israeli sources with Russia and then... POUNCE! OMG! We were right all along.

But that's like predicting that Trump will someday have breakfast, and then claiming some kind of victory when it happens. And no, not because it's inevitable that Trump will accidentally blurt out some secret stuff in an unrelated meeting or something, but because it's completely normal for nations to share intelligence in this way. It's a nothing story, made into "something" merely because those reporting it are pretending that it matters (and of course, some of the folks with a "D" after their names in Washington are more than willing to make statements that appear to support the narrative).

Warning that someone is going to do a bad thing, and then when they do a bad thing isn't like calling someone out for eating breakfast because people generally eat breakfast. It's making logical predictions about risk and then having those predictions come true.

Your argument seems to be premised on "Why are you predicting trump will be terrible at diplomacy and keeping secrets, why don't you trust the president" and then going "Sure he is terrible at diplomacy and keeping secrets, but because you warned about it, it's obvious that it was a nothing story, we all knew it was going to happen. Why didn't you just trust him?"

To be fair, I was perfectly okay with Dubya doing his thing in 2000. He was potentially a harmless, empty suit single term President like his father until 2003 when he decided to occupy Iraq.

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publiusvarus wrote:

we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.

That's not really accomplishing anything that deserves changing your opinion about him. He's been a dumpster fire since the late 70s, he was a dumpster fire during his campaign, and his presidency has been nothing short of another dumpster fire. Even if you want us to believe that the reason you think the scandals are fake isn't because of the big R, his attempts at damage control have been spectacular thermonuclear disasters, one after another. No one thought he should be president, and so far he's done nothing to prove otherwise. Speaks volumes that in all this time you can't even come up with a single positive besides "he won." Besides, it's also quite the lie, since your behavior changed during the last two months of the campaign, not after the election.

gbaji wrote:

I gave Obama the exact same benefit of the doubt.

You started "asking questions" about the legitimacy of his qualifications less than a month after the election, yet any questions about 45's behavior or temperament or decisions months later have all been unilaterally dismissed purely by "MEDIA CONSPIRACY!!" so you can see how your saying "same benefit" repeatedly might seem a little ... well, laughably transparent nonsense, right?

gbaji wrote:

And yeah, I intend to judge 45 the exact same way.

You can intend all you want. When you start actually doing it, that'll be something.

gbaji wrote:

I honestly have no clue what you are talking about?

Could you not insult your own intelligence and drop this feigning ignorance strategy you fall back on so often?

gbaji wrote:

If you had that much of a problem with 45 being a bit slow to raise his hand to his heart during the Anthem, you could have posted about it.

I didn't have a problem with the bow, why would I have a problem with this? You're the one crowing about your reactions, and this would have been a perfect opportunity for you to prove your consistency, yet instead of overreacting the same you did the opposite and actually marginalized it.

gbaji wrote:

As I said earlier, if you want to attack him for his political actions, that's great.

I have, just not with you. Your positions are too single-minded to really discuss anything political like adults.

gbaji wrote:

What part of "I don't scour the media looking for silly gotcha stuff" did you not get the first hundred or so times I said it?

The part where you do scour looking for silly got'chas for things that you believe fit your narrative and then passive aggressively remind people how "the internet was invented" when you think you have one. Maybe you need to contradict yourself another hundred times?

gbaji wrote:

So in this thread, it's people going hysterical over what I see as nothing more than media created fluff.

In this thread you managed to repeatedly pat yourself on the back about how moderate your analysis is and then gave examples of just how extremely you lean to one side.

gbaji wrote:

Get back to me when there are supporting facts for any of this.

No one goes to you in the first place. It just continues being amusing how with Republicans you demand facts yet Democrats it's "asking questions."

Edited, May 22nd 2017 12:45pm by lolgaxe

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George Carlin wrote:

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

No one who got all worked up about "The Odinga connection!" gets to claim that he doesn't scour the internet looking for silly stuff. The only place Odinga was talked about was on fringe right-wing blogs and conspiracy sites.